WITH the Queen’s Jubilee diary full, a small Canadian town is enthroning a look-a-like monarch from Coventry to crown their royal celebrations.

And the citizens of Tsawwassen, near Vancouver, didn’t have to search the realm for a jewel of a stand-in as Mavis Lloyd was right on their doorstep.

She has lived in the town for 35 years but on August 11, she will “reign” for the day in full queenly regalia at an outdoor party and movie night to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee.

Queen Mavis has even been honoured with her own £5 “bank note” bearing her regal portrait which can be used during the festivities. Mavis, aged 79, doesn’t believe she’s a dead ringer for the Queen but says other people frequently comment on the likeness.

“I was waiting for a transfer at Los Angeles airport when a man came up to me and said: ‘Has anyone ever told you how much you look like the Queen’,” she said.

Her succession to the throne came through the unlikely route of a newspaper advert posted by the town’s Business Improvement Association.

Though reluctant at first, the game-for-a-laugh gran, whose childhood during the Coventry Blitz forged a steely determination, decided to go against her husband’s advice and accepted the crown.

Her father was against girls’ education and Mavis left Coventry’s Wheatley Street School at 15, determined to go far.

She emigrated with husband John, a former Bablake schoolboy and Alfred Herbert engineer, in the 1950s, when post-war housing in England was scarce and expensive.

Mavis, who despite no formal qualifications had successfully taught special needs children at Cheylesmore School, harboured an ambition to carve out a career in the profession.

When her son, Ian, was born in 1960, she set about resuming her education in Canada – notching up a B.Ed, an MA in special needs teaching, an MA in psychology and a PhD.

She is approaching her 80th birthday, but, like the Queen, shows no sign of slowing up. After 35 years in teaching and 25 as a counsellor she now runs a private clinical practice.

Her seafront home close to the Canada-USA border couldn’t be further removed from the Queen’s royal residences but is a palace to her and John, who have two children, four grand-children and two great grandchildren.

“This is a small community, like a village; they are wonderful people and all supportive of each other,” said Mavis, whose wartime home was in Green Lane North, close to the Memorial Park where anti-aircraft guns were positioned.

She lost schoolfriends in the Blitz but says it hardened her resolve as a “fighter and a survivor” and she now enjoys an idyllic life in a spectacular landscape, she said.

“I envy absolutely nothing of Queen Elizabeth’s life," she added. “ I enjoy more freedom than she has ever experienced.

“I truly admire her level of devotion to the particular path that was mapped out for her by her birth.

“She is simply amazing. I love her smile, that comes from her heart and soul and shines in her eyes, and warms the cockles of people’s hearts the world over.”

She met her own “Prince Philip” – husband John – at a fundraising supper when Mavis was a Ranger in the Girl Guides, based at St Martin’s in the Fields church, Green Lane South, and John was a Rover in the Scouts.

They were married at the church in Coronation year, 1953, and next year clock up their own diamond anniversary.

“My biggest likeness to Queen Elizabeth is really our close and abiding relationship with our husbands,” said Mavis.